A Fractured Trajectory: Global Progress on Water and Sanitation (SDG 6) in the Shadow of the COVID-19 Pandemic

I. Executive Summary

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development established Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) as a cornerstone of human well-being, aiming to "ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all".1 This report provides an exhaustive analysis of global progress toward this goal, examining its trajectory from 2015 to the present. The analysis reveals a stark reality: progress, already critically insufficient before 2020, was profoundly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The global health crisis created a severe paradox, elevating the importance of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) to an unprecedented level for public health while simultaneously crippling the financial, operational, and institutional capacity of the sector to deliver these life-saving services.

Even before the pandemic, the world was not on track to meet its 2030 commitments. The pace of improvement in access to safely managed drinking water, sanitation, and basic hygiene services would have required a quadrupling to meet the universal access targets.2 The pandemic did not merely slow this inadequate progress; it fractured the trajectory, inflicting deep economic scars on water utilities, halting critical investments, and exacerbating entrenched inequalities. As of 2024, 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water, 3.4 billion lack safely managed sanitation, and 1.7 billion lack basic hygiene services at home.3

The scale of the challenge has grown immensely. To achieve universal coverage by 2030, the world must now accelerate its rate of progress by a factor of six for drinking water, five for sanitation, and three for hygiene.4 This "acceleration gap" is the defining legacy of the pandemic's impact on SDG 6. The crisis disproportionately affected the world's most vulnerable populations—those in informal settlements, fragile states, and rural communities—deepening a global divergence in water security.

This report concludes that a return to the pre-pandemic status quo is both impossible and undesirable. The crisis exposed the inherent brittleness of global WASH systems, which were often designed for static efficiency rather than resilience to systemic shocks. Charting a new course requires a fundamental paradigm shift. The strategic pathways forward must prioritize building systemic resilience through reimagined financing models that blend public and private capital, strengthened and integrated governance that breaks down institutional silos, and the systematic harnessing of data and innovation to drive evidence-based policy. The lessons of the pandemic are clear: water and sanitation are not just a long-term development goal but an urgent, non-negotiable commitment to global health security and human dignity.

II. The State of Global Water Security Before the Crisis (2015-2020)

The narrative of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on SDG 6 is not one of derailing a successful journey, but of striking a system already under immense strain and falling dangerously behind its commitments. Analysis of the period from 2015 to early 2020 reveals a foundation of fragility, where aggregate global statistics masked deep-seated inequalities and critical failures in governance. The 2019 UN Sustainable Development Goals Report, released just months before the pandemic, painted a stark picture of a world where progress was too slow to end human suffering, global hunger was rising, and the natural environment was deteriorating at an alarming rate.5 The state of water and sanitation was a reflection of this broader, systemic challenge.

A key finding from this period, confirmed by post-2020 analysis, was that achieving universal coverage by 2030 would have required a quadrupling of the then-current rates of progress.2 The world was, by every objective measure, already off track.

A Foundation of Fragility: The "Off-Track" Reality

The structure of SDG 6 is comprehensive, encompassing eight targets measured by eleven indicators, which are overseen by various UN custodian agencies. These targets cover not only access to services but the entire water cycle, from resource management to ecosystem health.

Table 1: SDG 6 Targets and Global Indicators at a Glance

Target

Indicator(s)

Custodian Agency(ies)

6.1 By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.

6.1.1 Proportion of population using safely managed drinking water services.

WHO, UNICEF

6.2 By 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation...

6.2.1 Proportion of population using (a) safely managed sanitation services and (b) a hand-washing facility with soap and water.

WHO, UNICEF

6.3 By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution... halving the proportion of untreated wastewater...

6.3.1 Proportion of domestic and industrial wastewater flows safely treated. 6.3.2 Proportion of bodies of water with good ambient water quality.

WHO, UN-Habitat, UNSD, UNEP

6.4 By 2030, substantially increase water-use efficiency... and ensure sustainable withdrawals... to address water scarcity...

6.4.1 Change in water-use efficiency over time. 6.4.2 Level of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources.

FAO

6.5 By 2030, implement integrated water resources management at all levels...

6.5.1 Degree of integrated water resources management. 6.5.2 Proportion of transboundary basin area with an operational arrangement for water cooperation.

UNEP, UNECE, UNESCO

6.6 By 2020, protect and restore water-related ecosystems...

6.6.1 Change in the extent of water-related ecosystems over time.

UNEP

6.a By 2030, expand international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing countries...

6.a.1 Amount of water- and sanitation-related official development assistance...

WHO, UNEP, OECD

6.b Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management.

6.b.1 Proportion of local administrative units with established and operational policies and procedures for participation of local communities...

WHO, UNEP, OECD

1

Target 6.1 & 6.2: Access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)

The most visible indicators of SDG 6 relate to direct human access to WASH services. While this area saw the most progress, the pace was dangerously slow.

• Drinking Water (Target 6.1): Between 2015 and 2020, the proportion of the global population using a "safely managed" drinking water service—defined as an improved source that is accessible on-premises, available when needed, and free from contamination—increased from 70% to 74%.7 This four-percentage-point gain, while positive, left 2 billion people without this fundamental service on the eve of a global health crisis that would hinge on access to clean water.9

• Sanitation & Hygiene (Target 6.2): Progress on sanitation and hygiene was even more concerning. Access to "safely managed" sanitation grew from 47% in 2015 to 54% in 2020.7 This meant that in 2020, 3.6 billion people—nearly half the world's population—lacked a safe toilet.9 The situation for hygiene was equally dire. In 2020, only 71% of people had access to a basic handwashing facility with soap and water at home.7 This left 2.3 billion people unable to practice the single most effective preventive measure against the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.9

These global figures, however, conceal a more troubling reality. The slow but steady rise in access was not evenly distributed, creating a dangerous divergence between the connected and the excluded. Progress was concentrated in areas that were easier to reach, while the most vulnerable were being left further behind. For instance, people living in fragile states were approximately four times more likely to lack basic drinking water services than those in stable contexts.5 Rural populations consistently lagged behind their urban counterparts; in 2020, safely managed drinking water coverage was 86% in urban areas but only 60% in rural areas.9 This disparity created pockets of extreme systemic risk that the pandemic would later expose and cruelly exploit.

Target 6.3: Water Quality and Wastewater Management

If progress on WASH access was slow, progress on managing water after its use was nearly non-existent. An estimated 80% of global wastewater was being discharged into the environment without any treatment, polluting freshwater sources and threatening ecosystems.10 Data from the period indicated that little, if any, headway was being made toward the target of halving the proportion of untreated wastewater by 2030.4 This widespread failure represented a silent, pervasive threat to both public health and environmental sustainability.

Target 6.4: Water Scarcity and Efficiency

The challenge of water scarcity was intensifying long before the pandemic.

• Water Stress: By 2018, the global level of water stress (the ratio of freshwater withdrawn to total renewable freshwater resources) stood at a seemingly safe 18.2%.4 However, this global average was dangerously misleading. It masked critical regional variations, with water stress levels already high in Southern and Central Asia and at critical levels in Northern Africa and Western Asia. In these regions, water stress had surged by 18% between 2015 and 2018 alone.4 For hundreds of millions of people, the water crisis was not a future threat but a present-day reality.

• Water-Use Efficiency: Global water-use efficiency, measured as the dollar value added per cubic meter of water withdrawn, showed a modest 9% improvement between 2015 and 2018, rising from $17.4/m³ to $18.9/m³.4 While a positive trend, this aggregate figure obscured the fact that efficiency remained critically low in many countries, particularly within the agricultural sector, which accounts for the vast majority of global water withdrawals.

Target 6.5 & 6.6: Integrated Management and Ecosystems

The "software" of water governance—management, cooperation, and conservation—was lagging significantly, pointing to a deeper institutional crisis.

• Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM - Target 6.5): Progress in implementing IWRM, a comprehensive approach to coordinating water development and management across sectors, was sluggish. The global implementation rate stood at only 49% in 2017, inching up to 54% by 2020—a pace far too slow to achieve the target.4

• Protecting Ecosystems (Target 6.6): This target, which had a deadline of 2020, was unequivocally missed. The pre-pandemic period saw continued land degradation and an alarming loss of biodiversity, with one million plant and animal species at risk of extinction, many of them dependent on the very freshwater ecosystems—wetlands, rivers, and aquifers—that SDG 6 was designed to protect.5

The lack of progress on these governance-centric targets, when contrasted with the modest gains in infrastructure-focused targets like 6.1 and 6.2, reveals a critical bottleneck. Building pipes and toilets is a known, if expensive, engineering challenge. In contrast, implementing IWRM or protecting transboundary water basins requires immense political will, complex legal frameworks, and effective coordination between competing ministries of agriculture, energy, and environment.12 The pre-pandemic data suggests that the primary obstacle to achieving SDG 6 was not a deficit of technology but a failure of governance. This implies that simply increasing funding for infrastructure, without a parallel investment in strengthening institutions and fostering political cooperation, would yield diminishing returns—a crucial lesson for the post-pandemic era.

III. The Pandemic's Shockwave: A Multifaceted Impact on the Water Sector

The COVID-19 pandemic was not a singular event but a systemic shock that sent reverberations through every dimension of the global water and sanitation sector. It created a profound paradox: while elevating the public and political profile of hygiene to an unprecedented level, it simultaneously unleashed a cascade of financial and operational crises that undermined the sector's ability to respond. The pandemic did not just slow progress; it exposed the deep-seated fragility of the systems upon which billions of people depend.

The Paradox of Hygiene: Elevated Importance, Diminished Access

From the earliest days of the crisis, handwashing with soap and water was promoted by the World Health Organization and national governments as a primary defense against the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.14 This messaging thrust the often-neglected WASH sector into the global spotlight. However, for the 2.3 billion people who lacked a basic handwashing facility at home in 2020, this advice was a practical impossibility.9 In the dense informal settlements of Asia and Africa, where families rely on shared water points and public toilets, adherence to public health guidance on hygiene and physical distancing was an untenable expectation, dramatically increasing vulnerability to infection.17

The crisis was particularly acute in healthcare facilities. Even before the pandemic, one in four facilities globally lacked basic water services, and one in five had no sanitation service.15 This catastrophic deficit meant that hospitals and clinics, intended as places of healing, became potential hotspots for viral transmission, endangering both patients and the frontline health workers tasked with fighting the pandemic.20

The Financial Fracture: A Cascade of Economic Shocks

The economic consequences of lockdowns and social distancing measures were swift and devastating for water utilities, creating a financial fracture that threatened their very viability.

• Revenue Collapse: The closure of businesses and industries led to a sharp drop in water demand from commercial and industrial users. These users are often the most profitable customers for utilities, and their subsidized rates for residential users. Global estimates projected that industrial water demand would fall by an average of 27% due to the pandemic.22

• Payment Moratoriums and Affordability Crisis: In a socially necessary response to the economic crisis, many governments mandated moratoriums on water service disconnections and suspended billing for low-income households.22 While vital for public health, these measures, combined with widespread job losses and an ensuing affordability crisis among households, decimated utility revenue streams. Globally, water and wastewater utilities expected to see revenue collections fall by an average of 15%.22

• Investment Freeze and Diverted Budgets: Faced with this unprecedented revenue shock, utilities were forced to divert remaining funds to cover immediate operational expenses, putting a freeze on long-term capital investments. Crucial projects to expand or upgrade infrastructure were halted or indefinitely delayed, directly impacting efforts to reach the unserved.22 This internal crisis was compounded by external financial pressures. National governments reallocated public funds away from WASH and toward emergency health and economic stimulus packages.16 Official Development Assistance (ODA) to the water sector, which had already been stagnating, saw disbursements in 2020 and 2021 drop to their lowest levels since 2015.4

This contradiction—between the universal public health messaging that promoted hygiene and the financial data showing a clear de-prioritization of the sector—reveals a critical disconnect. Despite the rhetoric, WASH was not treated by many governments and donors as an acute public health security imperative on par with vaccines or personal protective equipment. Instead, it remained siloed as a long-term development issue. Humanitarian funding appeals reflected this reality: during the pandemic's peak, appeals for WASH interventions were never more than 30% funded, a stark indicator of its relative priority in the global emergency response.23

Operational Paralysis and Systemic Strain

The pandemic inflicted a dual shock on the operational capacity of service providers.

• Supply Chain Disruption: Global lockdowns caused major ruptures in supply chains, making it difficult and more expensive for utilities to procure essential goods like water treatment chemicals, spare parts for pumps and pipes, and fuel for operations.16

• Workforce Challenges: Quarantine measures and travel restrictions severely limited the movement of essential maintenance staff. Many utilities were forced to operate with skeleton crews, increasing the risk of infrastructure failure and service interruptions going unrepaired.16 The constant threat of contagion among the workforce posed a significant risk to the continuity of these essential services.

The combination of these shocks revealed that much of the world's WASH infrastructure was a "brittle system." It was functional under normal conditions but lacked the financial buffers, supply chain diversity, and operational flexibility to withstand a systemic crisis. The pandemic exposed a fundamental flaw in a sector model often characterized by underfunding, artificially low tariffs, and high dependency on a few key revenue streams and supply chains.

Table 3: A System Under Stress - Summary of COVID-19 Impacts on the Global Water and Sanitation Sector

Thematic Area

Impact / Challenge

Key Evidence / Data

Financial Impacts

Utility Revenue Collapse

Industrial and commercial water demand fell by an average of 27%.22

Payment Moratoriums & Affordability Crisis

Utilities expected revenue collection to drop by an average of 15%.22

Investment Freeze

Capital expenditures were projected to decline as utilities prioritized operational costs.22

Declining Aid & Diverted Budgets

ODA disbursements in 2020-2021 were the lowest since 2015; humanitarian WASH appeals were <30% funded.4

Operational Impacts

Supply Chain Disruption

Failures to procure fuel, chemicals, and spare parts led to service gaps.16

Workforce Restrictions

Lockdowns and quarantine measures restricted movement of essential staff, impacting maintenance and repairs.16

Increased Demand on Fragile Systems

Household water consumption increased due to stay-at-home measures, straining already weak infrastructure.16

Social Impacts

Exacerbated Hygiene Gap

2.3 billion people lacked basic handwashing facilities, making adherence to health advice impossible.9

Disproportionate Burden on Vulnerable Groups

Those in informal settlements, fragile states, and refugee camps faced heightened transmission risks.17

Increased Burden on Women and Girls

Water collection became more hazardous; school closures and lockdowns increased care burdens and risk of domestic violence.17

Governance & Policy Impacts

Spotlight on Deficiencies in Healthcare Facilities

1 in 4 healthcare facilities globally lacked basic water services, turning them into potential transmission hotspots.15

Emergence of Emergency Measures

Governments implemented temporary measures like water trucking and public handwashing stations.22

Exacerbating Inequality: A Spotlight on the Vulnerable

The impacts of the pandemic were not felt equally; they fell hardest on those already in the most precarious situations.

• Informal Settlements: For the billion people living in urban slums, the crisis was acute. Overcrowding, reliance on shared and often unhygienic water points and toilets, and the inability to store water made physical distancing and safe hygiene impossible.17

• Women and Girls: The pandemic amplified the gendered impacts of inadequate WASH access. The burden of collecting water, which already falls disproportionately on women and girls, became more dangerous due to the risk of infection and more time-consuming due to service disruptions. School closures added to their caregiving responsibilities, while lockdowns contributed to a global surge in domestic violence, with the lack of in-home WASH facilities often serving as a trigger for conflict.17

• Fragile and Conflict-Affected States: In these contexts, already weak systems collapsed entirely. The pandemic acted as a crisis multiplier, compounding the effects of conflict, climate change, and economic instability, making the delivery of even the most basic emergency WASH services immensely challenging.15

IV. The Post-Pandemic Reality: A Widening Chasm to 2030

The immediate crisis of the pandemic has subsided, but its legacy is a significantly widened gap between the current reality and the 2030 targets for SDG 6. The latest global data reveals a world that has lost precious time and resources, making the final push toward universal access an even more formidable challenge. The recovery is proving to be uneven, threatening to create a "great divergence" between nations that can rebound and those left further behind. Yet, the crisis also spurred innovation and adaptation, offering potential seeds for a more resilient future.

Quantifying the Acceleration Gap: The New Arithmetic of Failure

An analysis of the most recent data confirms that the pandemic has pushed the 2030 goals further out of reach. While global coverage has continued to increase incrementally, the pace of progress remains dangerously slow.

As of 2024, 74% of the world's population uses a safely managed drinking water service, 58% uses a safely managed sanitation service, and 80% has access to basic hygiene.4 These figures represent a slight improvement over the 2020 baseline but are nowhere near the trajectory required. The central, sobering statistic of the post-pandemic era is the required rate of acceleration. To achieve universal coverage by the 2030 deadline, the world now needs to implement a six-fold increase in its current rate of progress for drinking water, a five-fold increase for sanitation, and a three-fold increase for hygiene.4 This is a monumental escalation from the four-fold increase that was deemed necessary before the pandemic.2

Table 2: The Widening Gap - Progress on Key WASH Indicators, Pre- vs. Post-Pandemic

Indicator

Pre-Pandemic Baseline (% Global Coverage, 2020)

Post-Pandemic Status (% Global Coverage, 2024)

Change (Percentage points)

Required Acceleration Factor (Pre-Pandemic)

Required Acceleration Factor (Post-Pandemic)

Safely Managed Drinking Water (6.1.1)

74% 7

74% 11

0

4x 2

6x 4

Safely Managed Sanitation (6.2.1a)

54% 7

58% 11

+4

4x 2

5x 4

Basic Hygiene Services (6.2.1b)

71% 7

80% 4

+9

4x 2

3x 4

This table powerfully visualizes the pandemic's impact. It shows that progress on the most fundamental service, drinking water, has stagnated. While sanitation and hygiene have seen some gains, the required rate of progress to meet the 2030 target has still increased significantly for water and sanitation, transforming an already steep climb into a near-vertical ascent.

Regional Deep Dives: A Tale of Divergent Recoveries

The global averages mask a highly uneven recovery, with the pandemic's impacts creating a "K-shaped" trajectory where some regions may rebound while others are at risk of falling into a deeper crisis.

• Sub-Saharan Africa: This region continues to face the most profound challenges. Pre-existing vulnerabilities were amplified by the pandemic, and many well-intentioned emergency interventions failed to reach the poorest households, which often rely on informal water vendors and were overlooked by utility-based support schemes.19 The region's healthcare facilities remain catastrophically under-equipped, with the vast majority lacking basic water and sanitation services, a deficit that the pandemic laid bare.20 Perhaps most disturbingly, some research conducted during the pandemic found that handwashing rates fell in several sub-Saharan African nations.27 This counterintuitive finding suggests that a combination of "pandemic fatigue," a public health focus on other measures like masking, and persistent lack of access to soap and water can undermine even the most logical health behaviors. This elevates the importance of sustained, culturally sensitive behavioral science programs to be on par with infrastructure development in all future WASH initiatives.

• Asia-Pacific: This vast region presents a more mixed, but still challenging, picture. While some countries had made rapid gains in access pre-pandemic, nearly 910 million people across the region still lack access to safe sanitation.28 The pandemic hit the region's sprawling informal settlements, particularly in South Asia, with brutal force. In places like India and Indonesia, reliance on shared, often contaminated, water sources and toilets created significant transmission risks and placed an immense burden on women.17 The crisis also exposed the financial fragility of the region's water utilities; a survey by the Asian Development Bank found that two-thirds of providers saw a decrease in commercial and industrial revenues, threatening their long-term sustainability.29

This regional analysis points toward a great divergence. Well-resourced utilities and nations may be able to absorb the lessons of the pandemic, integrating resilience into their planning and accelerating progress. However, under-resourced utilities and fragile states, now burdened by new debt and depleted institutional capacity, are at risk of falling even further behind. Without targeted international support, debt relief, and technology transfer, the gap between the world's water-haves and have-nots could become a permanent chasm.

Innovations Born from Crisis: Seeds of a More Resilient Future?

Despite the devastating impacts, the crisis also served as a catalyst for adaptation and innovation, offering potential models for building a more resilient future.

• Emergency Responses and Public-Private Partnerships: The urgency of the situation spurred new forms of collaboration. Corporations like Diageo and Unilever repurposed production lines to create hand sanitizer and partnered with development agencies on mass hygiene campaigns.30 Organizations like WaterAid rapidly developed and disseminated guidance to help businesses make workplaces safer and protect their supply chains.30

• Community-Led Innovations: At the grassroots level, communities demonstrated remarkable resilience. In informal settlements in Indonesia, residents developed their own solutions, such as creating schedules for using shared toilets to maintain physical distance and organizing the construction of new, simple handwashing stations in public areas.24 These bottom-up actions highlight the critical importance of local engagement in designing effective and sustainable solutions.

• Technological Adoption: The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital tools and mobile health (mHealth) technologies in the WASH sector. These technologies offer powerful new ways to conduct remote monitoring of water systems, create feedback loops between users and service providers, and deliver targeted hygiene behavior change campaigns via mobile phones.31 If deployed equitably, these innovations could represent a leapfrog opportunity to improve service delivery and accountability, particularly in hard-to-reach areas.

V. Charting a Resilient Future: Strategic Pathways for Acceleration

The diagnosis is clear: the world is severely off track to achieve SDG 6 by 2030, and the COVID-19 pandemic has steepened the curve. A return to the pre-2020 approach is a recipe for failure. The final years of the 2030 Agenda demand a radical acceleration driven by a new paradigm focused on building systemic resilience. This requires a concerted, multi-faceted strategy that reimagines finance, strengthens governance, harnesses data, and treats water security not as an aspirational goal but as a non-negotiable commitment to human health and global stability.32

Reimagining Finance: From Funding Gaps to Sustainable Investment

The most immediate barrier to progress is the chronic and now-worsening funding gap. A multi-pronged financial strategy is essential to close it.

• Increase and Target Official Development Assistance (ODA): International donors and financial institutions must reverse the recent decline in aid to the water sector. ODA must be increased and more effectively targeted, ensuring it is better aligned with national water sector plans, particularly in low-income and fragile states where domestic resources are scarcest.4

• Strengthen Domestic Resource Mobilization: National governments must recognize WASH as a cornerstone of economic recovery, pandemic preparedness, and public health security. This requires increasing the allocation for water and sanitation in national budgets and exploring sustainable revenue sources, such as well-designed tariffs that protect the poor while ensuring the financial viability of utilities.23

• Promote Innovative Finance: The scale of the investment needed—trillions, not billions—cannot be met by public funds alone. Governments and development partners must actively promote innovative financing mechanisms to attract private capital. This includes leveraging blended finance models, issuing green or blue bonds for water infrastructure, and creating public-private partnerships (PPPs) that focus on projects delivering both financial returns and measurable improvements in climate and financial resilience.32

Strengthening Governance and Institutions: From Fragmentation to Integration

The pandemic exposed the profound weaknesses of fragmented water governance.12 Building resilience requires breaking down institutional silos and fostering integrated approaches.

• Accelerate Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM): A renewed and urgent push is needed to implement IWRM (Target 6.5) at all levels. This means creating and empowering platforms for coordination between ministries of water, agriculture, energy, health, and finance to ensure that decisions in one sector do not undermine water security in another.3 The global implementation rate of 57% in 2023 is far too low.4

• Enhance Transboundary Cooperation: With 153 countries sharing rivers, lakes, or aquifers, and with climate change intensifying water stress, strengthening operational arrangements for transboundary water cooperation is essential for preventing conflict and ensuring regional stability.4

• Empower Local Communities (Target 6.b): Top-down solutions often fail. It is critical to support and strengthen the meaningful participation of local communities, women, youth, and indigenous groups in the planning and management of water and sanitation services. This ensures that solutions are equitable, culturally appropriate, and sustainable over the long term.3

Harnessing Data and Technology: From Anecdote to Evidence

Effective action must be guided by robust data and evidence. The post-pandemic era offers an opportunity to build smarter, more responsive WASH systems.

• Invest in Data Systems: The 2024 Medellín Framework for Action provides a clear roadmap for transforming national data systems.32 Countries and donors must invest in the capacity to collect, analyze, and use timely, disaggregated data on all SDG 6 indicators. This is the only way to identify who is being left behind, target interventions effectively, and hold governments accountable for progress.13

• Scale Proven Innovations: The innovations that emerged from the pandemic must not be lost. There is a need for a systematic effort to identify, evaluate, and scale up promising solutions. This includes everything from low-cost, community-led hygiene initiatives to high-tech applications like remote sensing for water resource monitoring and mHealth platforms for behavior change, ensuring these tools are deployed equitably to avoid widening the digital divide.13

Building Systemic Resilience: A Non-Negotiable Commitment

The ultimate lesson of the past few years is that resilience is not a luxury but a necessity. The goal can no longer be simply to provide access to a tap or a toilet; it must be to guarantee that this access is secure, reliable, and can withstand the inevitable shocks of the future, whether from pandemics, climate change, or economic crises. This requires treating the SDGs as "non-negotiable commitments to current and future generations".32 It means embedding risk management into the core of utility operations, developing contingency financing mechanisms, and designing infrastructure that is resilient to climate change. Future-proofing our world against the next crisis begins with ensuring that the first line of defense—safe water, sanitation, and hygiene—is strong, resilient, and available to all.

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